Don’t optimize – creAIgilize! : how creative agility can inspire a responsible use of AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming language and communication and reshaping language professions by automating routine tasks and augmenting human capabilities. Today, translators, interpreters and writers increasingly rely on AI tools to enhance productivity (Delormes et al., 2021/2022; Ehrensberger-Dow et al., 2023). In the context of AI's proliferation, responsible and sustainable integration of these technologies is critical. Generative AI systems, such as ChatGPT, provide functional yet average solutions, underscoring the need for advanced human problem-solving capabilities to effectively address multifaceted global challenges and polycrises. Embedding these future-oriented skills into educational curricula and organizational structures is indispensable for fostering meaningful dialogue and collective action. We also include Creative Agility in these future skills (Ehlers, 2019, 2020a/b). This future skill includes non-linear competences such as allowing not-knowing, practicing change of perspective, dealing constructively with emotions and fears, leveraging diversity and unlearning outdated thought patterns. Creative Agility, which is directly related to the sustainability framework of the Inner Development Goals (IDG 2025) enables us to face chaotic, ambiguous and uncertain situations creatively and flexibly. By cultivating Creative Agility, we ensure preparedness for navigating current and future transformation processes sustainably. In an Erasmus+ project on Creative Agility (2021–2023) and in light of Sustainable Development Goal 4 “Quality Education” (SDG 2025) the ZHAW together with educational institutions across Europe examined how art-based strategies can transform digital and analog communication within organizations. The project developed creagile interventions and a modular, arts-based, and methodologically robust training curriculum, which was piloted across Europe and Switzerland, engaging decision-makers and managers, including participants from SBB Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (ZHAW, 2024). Building upon these findings, the subsequent project, CreAIgile Literacy (2024–2026), involving international partners from Switzerland, Germany, and the United States focuses on further developing and testing multilingual training programs to enhance Creative Agility competencies, to inspire a responsible use of AI. The rapid evolution of AI is significantly impacting communication-intensive professions and educational practices across various contexts. While AI technologies, such as machine translation and automated text generation, increasingly manage routine tasks, the demand for transferable and interdisciplinary genuinely human, skills is becoming more pronounced. Non-linear competencies like openness to uncertainty, embracing multiple perspectives and open-mindedness in view of addressing questions beyond their immediate knowledge are key for navigating complex and ambiguous scenarios. These creagile skills enable individuals and organizations to approach uncertainties in transformative processes with flexibility and creativity (ZHAW, 2025a/b). At the VALS ASLA conference, we will provide insights into our creagile action research workshops and intervention sessions with employees at different hierarchical levels of our Swiss practice partner in the multilingual travel industry, DERTOUR Suisse. And we will share key learnings in view of the emerging results.